Once Bitten Read Online Free PDF Page A

walked forward. As I drew closer I realised I wasn't looking at one form but two, one lying down on the ground, the other crouched over him, with its back to me. I moved to the side and I saw that the figure on the floor - I assumed it was a man but there was no way of telling for sure because it was just a shape - with its legs pointing in my direction, one arm flung out to the side, the other obscured by whatever it was that was kneeling over him. The slurping was louder. It sounded less like a cat feeding and more like two lovers kissing, soft, wet, squelchy sounds and swallowing noises, the sound of flesh against flesh.
    Something within me wanted to cry out, to try to stop whatever was happening on the floor of the alley, but I wanted to see exactly what was going on. I wanted to get closer. The two shapes became clearer as I moved towards them. The figure on the floor was lying on its back. It was a man, wearing a suit of some dark material and shiny black shoes. His socks were dark but sprinkled with white triangles. The material around the knees of the trousers was torn as if he'd been dragged along the ground. The shape looming over his neck was wearing a glossy leather jacket with the collar turned up and jeans that could have been blue or black, and boots with silver tips on the toes. The heels of the boots were clearly visible because the figure was on its knees,
    bending over the head of the man in the suit.
    The snuffling noises stopped suddenly and the shoulders of the kneeling figure stiffened as if aware that I was watching. Its head began to turn slowly and I tried to move away but my feet seemed to be fixed, as if they'd sprouted roots that had wormed their way into the ground and were holding me fast. I saw a cheek first, alabaster white, a smooth curve from the eye to the chin, then a curtain of hair swung across and that was all I could see as the head continued to turn and then, as the figure began to rise and turn at the same time, only then did I see her face. Terry. She was wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket zipped up to her neck, steel zips running at angle across her chest and others marking where the pockets must have been. She smiled up at me and raised her right hand to her mouth. There was a streak of something along her right cheek, something wet that glistened as she moved, and her fingers touched it, rubbed it, and then carried it to her lips.
    Slowly and sensuously she licked the fingers with the tip of her tongue, one by one. I couldn't take my eyes off her and she smiled as if she knew how firmly I was trapped. I was in her power.
    Totally.
    “I knew you'd come,” she said, and she took another step forward. For the first time I could see the head of the man lying on the floor. His mouth was wide open as if he had been trying to scream but I doubted that any sound would have managed to pass the drawn-back lips because the throat had been ripped messily open as if the flesh had been hacked and gouged with a dull knife. Or teeth. He looked dead and the eyes were blank and lifeless but there was blood pooling in the hollow of his throat and it bubbled and frothed as if he was trying to breath through what was left of his windpipe.
    “Look at me, Jamie,” she whispered, and I found myself doing as she asked. “Forget him. He's nothing.” She licked her fingers again and then reached forward and pressed them to my lips.
    They tasted salty and vaguely metallic. She stood up against me so that her jacket brushed against my chest. I hadn't realised until that moment how short she was, the top of her head barely reached my chin and she had to tilt her head back to see my face, the action stretching the skin taught across her cheekbones making her look impossibly young, a child with a smeared face. “You have to want to give yourself to me, Jamie. You have to want it deep within your soul. That's the way it works. You have to offer yourself. Nothing less. Do you understand?”
    I